Last December, the management of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, promised Nigerians that it would reduce crashes on the nation’s highways through strategic exercises.
According to the FRSC’s Corp Marshal, Osita Chidoka, “FRSC is working on the aspiration of becoming a world class organisation, we say something and do it. We promised Nigerians… we are going to reduce crashes on the roads. We want the public to appreciate that we are actually reducing crashes, so this is urging the FRSC officials to double their efforts for 2015 to achieve our corporate objectives”, said Chidoka.
Though there is no official comprehensive report from the FRSC yet, there were indications that the commission did fairly well.
It has been observed that, the commission and other sister agencies work more during the yuletides and other major public holidays, periods of mass movement of people across the length and breadth of the nation, but go to sleep at other times. In anticipation of the usually high rate of casualty during the last quarter of every year, popularly referred to as ‘ember months’, the officers and men of FRSC and other relevant agencies are up and doing in their attempts to caution Nigerians on safety measures in order to reduce the rate of accidents. They took their campaign round parks, the media and other public places.
This is also coupled with the fact, the Federal Government through the Federal Road Rehabilitation and Maintenance Agency, FERMA, made an effective eleventh hour rehabilitation of some major dilapidated federal highways across the country.
Nevertheless, there are several report cases of road mishaps. A reported stated that, between December 22 and December 31 last year, FRSC officials reported that not less than 88 people died in various accidents across Nigeria, while about 323 people sustained various degrees of injuries from the accidents. On December 22, the commission said that, one person was killed while three others sustained injuries when a truck and a lorry were involved in an accident along Toro/Jos road.
Similarly, on December 23, there a report that 18 people, including two children, lost their lives. Out of this number, 19 persons sustained varying degrees of injury. This took place across the countries.
According to the FRSC, most road crashes involve buses and articulated vehicles and the result from overloading, over speeding, drunk driving, bad roads, mechanical faults of vehicles, among others.
The nation is barely five weeks away from the 2013 Christmas celebration. What is the commission’s plan towards improving on its last efforts? While it is gladdening that federal roads have been receiving aggressive attention, in terms of maintenance and construction, this should not make the FRSC trail off into laxity.
There is need for early sensitisation and awareness campaign by the commission. Special provision should be made for funding, personnel training and other incentives because these are some of the usual handy excuses used by the FRSC officials to explain official slack and inefficiency.